Fourteen straight innings without allowing a run and 15 runs scored unanswered highlighted a dominant stretch of fielding, pitching and batting by the Texas A&M baseball team across two games, including the Tuesday, June 21 win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
“I thought it was our best game [in the College World Series]. It certainly wasn’t our best baserunning game … [but] in terms of pitching and defense, it was by far our cleanest,” A&M coach Jim Schlossnagle said.
In a three-and-a-half-hour elimination slugfest between the Aggies and the Irish, the Aggies only needed two frames of damage to accrue a 5-1 win to stay alive in the College World Series
With the win, the Aggies have won two straight games after dropping their Omaha, Neb., opener to the Oklahoma Sooners, the same team in the way of a potential championship berth. This is the first time A&M has won two games in the same CWS appearance.
“When [the pitchers are] out there rolling, we can spend five, six minutes on defense and it saves a lot of energy,” sophomore third baseman Trevor Werner said. “That’s what helped us be successful and get the win … A couple of days ago before our first elimination game, we talked about taking it one game at a time. Don’t let the Aggies win one.”
Entering the game, the Irish were 34-4 in games when they scored first, proving an early lead to be crucial to the Aggies. Starting pitcher and sophomore righty Nathan Dettmer did his part, holding the Golden Domers to two scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts, but A&M started slow again at the plate.
Through two innings, A&M had seven plate appearances with only one hit — a double from junior designated hitter Austin Bost — and one walk from sophomore second baseman Ryan Targac. Notre Dame’s starting pitcher junior righty Liam Simon snagged seven strikeouts in just the first two frames, harkening back to Schlossnagle’s earlier complaints after the Texas game about the Aggies giving up “free outs.”
Once the third inning light shined on the Charles Schwab Field scoreboard, though, the Aggies began to wake up, and the Irish began to make mistakes on the field.
“It hurts when you give [the other team] opportunities like that. They’re a fantastic team,” Notre Dame coach Link Jarrett said. “I didn’t feel like we ever got into a real rhythm … We clearly didn’t play a well-rounded game.”
After opening the top of the inning with a walk, junior centerfielder Jordan Thompson advanced to second after a balk by Simon. Then, senior shortstop Kole Kaler advanced to first after a fly ball failed to be caught by Notre Dame’s senior centerfielder Spencer Myers. Piling on the mistakes, Werner was walked, forcing the Notre Dame staff to pull Simon for freshman lefty Jack Findlay.
With the bases loaded, sophomore first baseman Jack Moss continued his cold streak, striking out at the plate, but when senior left fielder Dylan Rock got up to bat, the Irish finally cracked. Rock reached home on a throwing error, allowing him to advance to second, Werner to advance to third and Thompson and Kaler to run home for a 2-0 ballgame.
With the errors piling up, Bost was walked before Targac hit a fly ball into a double play, but not before Werner ran home for the Aggies’ third run of the third inning. To close the third, Dettmer continued his no-hitter, keeping the Irish scoreless.
Despite a pair of singles from A&M and a single from Notre Dame senior catcher David LaManna, neither team managed to score in the fourth. Leading off the fifth, Werner lit up a Findlay pitch for a 394-foot flight to deep left field, giving the Aggies their third homer of the College World Series. Wanting in on the action, Moss broke his batting slump with a deep ball to right-centerfield for a double. He then took third base on a passed ball and home plate on a Rock single, giving A&M a 5-0 lead and forcing a third pitcher out for the Irish, senior righty Alex Rao.
Rao controlled the bleeding to end the fifth, but Notre Dame had another scoreless inning before pulling Rao for senior lefty Will Mercer midway through the top of the sixth after giving up a walk and a single. Neither team managed to score until the bottom of the eighth. Dettmer was pulled after seven innings — pitching three hits, no walks, six strikeouts and no runs — and senior right fielder Brooks Coetzee led off with a solo homer on freshman righty Brad Rudis to tighten things at 5-1.
“I thought it was a great ballgame. Obviously, [Dettmer] was outstanding in every sense of the word, coming back on short rest and giving us exactly what we need,” Schlossnagle said.
“After Friday[‘s game against Oklahoma], I felt terrible and like I let my team down,” Dettmer said. “[It felt good] to redeem myself. To know the guys behind me believed in me, it felt amazing.”
“[Friday] was tough. After that game, I felt so little,” Dettmer said. “I went in my hotel room and I cried. I didn’t know what to do and I felt lost. My good friend, [junior right-handed pitcher] Micah Dallas texted me and said that one game doesn’t define me as a person. All my worth is through God, and he told me that’s not my story. I had to trust in His plan, and I had success today.”
After Rudis hit senior left fielder Ryan Cole and walked Myers, Rudis was pulled with just 15 pitches under his belt, placing junior lefty Joseph Menefee at the mound to close out the eighth and the game, which he accomplished.
A&M will face back against the team who gave it its first loss of the postseason, Oklahoma, in a 1 p.m. matchup on Wednesday, June 22. If the Aggies win, they would need to beat Oklahoma a second time in a row to reach the championship. With a loss, the Aggies will head home to College Station.
“Whether we win or lose the rest of this thing, this team is going to be remembered for a really long time,” Schlossnagle said.